A tale of two speeches on Inauguration Day

By AARON MACKISEY
Posted 1/23/25

Monday marked the 60th Presidential Inauguration, which for only the second time in history was held in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol Building (the first being in 1985). While the inclement weather …

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A tale of two speeches on Inauguration Day

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Monday marked the 60th Presidential Inauguration, which for only the second time in history was held in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol Building (the first being in 1985). While the inclement weather kept me and thousands more from attending in person, thankfully, C-SPAN has us all covered.

Accompanied by his family, members of his administration and Congress and a select group of supporters, surrounded by statues of American giants and Trumbull’s majestic depictions of our young republic’s finest moments, Donald J. Trump took the oath of office to become the 47th president of the United States of America.

Only the second individual to be elected to two non-consecutive terms as our nation’s chief executive, Trump reached this moment after having waged a multi-year campaign to return to the White House following his defeat in 2020 to then-former Vice President Joseph Biden. Always someone who does not operate within the traditional norms and standards of his predecessors, Trump gave not one but two inaugural addresses on Monday. Both of which built upon the themes of his successful campaign: renewal and retribution.

In his address, the president articulated his view of an America in decline, an America experiencing an economy where basic goods are unaffordable for the average family, a nation unable to adequately care for its citizens impacted by natural disaster, a nation disrespected on the international stage, a nation unable to control its own borders.

For these problems, the president squarely laid blame on the failings (unintended and intended) of his predecessor’s administration. For these problems, the president offered a remarkably focused laundry list of specific executive actions, which he has taken in the hours and days since being inaugurated. For a president well known for his inability to stick to the script and his penchant for freewheeling from the podium, Trump’s address was remarkably concise and specific regarding the executive actions he would take to bring about an American renewal.

The formalities concluded, President Trump ventured beneath the Rotunda to Emancipation Hall, where an overflow crowd of supporters had been watching the inauguration on jumbotrons. There, just minutes after his teleprompter stopped, the president delivered the speech he clearly wanted to give all along and one, he felt, that was “better than the one [he made] upstairs.” Over the course of a half-hour, Trump vacillated between old and new gripes –  he claimed the election was rigged in California, insisted that his former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and members of the January 6th Committee were guilty of “very very bad crimes,” and that those individuals charged and convicted for crimes committed on Jan. 6, 2021, were “hostages” and would soon receive deliverance.

Admittedly, my taste in government administration and political leaders has always skewed closer to those, as George H.W. Bush stated in his 1989 inaugural, who are “engaged in high moral principle … [making] kinder the face of the nation and gentler the face of the world.” As the son of a state trooper, I’ve never had sympathy for those who disrespect or attack police officers, as is the case of Rhode Islander Timothy J. Desjardins, convicted of beating police officers with a table leg on January 6th. True to his word, Trump pardoned him, and some 1,500 other individuals for their actions on January 6th.

 I simply can’t understand when someone claims the mantle of “Law & Order” and “back the blue,” only to countenance their supporters doing harm to police officers. On his Inauguration Day, Trump had a great opportunity to rally and unify the country. Regardless of how our national tension and division began, he could have brought the American family together to say “regardless of who started it, I’m gonna end it,” and lower the national temperature through words and action. As President Trump said on Monday, “its action, not words, that count,” and through his action our 47th president missed an opportunity to turn the page, seek a new beginning, and bring more Americans to his cause.

Yet, my analysis aside, I firmly believe in that great American tradition that regardless of how you feel personally about the occupant of the Oval Office, that you pray for their success and the success of the country under their leadership. I hope that the next time Trump has the opportunity to unify the nation through deeds, he takes it. Maybe I’m asking for too much change from a man in his eighth decade of life; maybe I’m asking too much from our broken political system, with its misaligned incentives. Either way, it starts with us, so let's work for unity centered on a renewal of our American body-politic, making kinder the face of the nation and gentler the face of the world.

Asked by The Warwick Beacon to provide commentary on the 60th Presidential Inauguration, Aaron Mackisey, a Warwick native, currently lives in Washington, D.C., where he works in the nonprofit sector. Previously he served the Picozzi administration as the mayor’s chief of staff.

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